Joe GallopBristol’s Forwards Festival, promoted by Team Love and AEG, partnered with GiveVision and Accessible Events to provide people with visual impairments the chance to experience the festival via headsets delivering streamed content from the stage.
The technology enables the delivery of content to be tailored to each individual’s needs and uses on-stage cameras to stream footage in real-time to the user’s headset.
The 50,000-capacity Forwards became the first festival in the world to offer the technology to visually impaired attendees.
Forwards returned for its second year from 1-2 September, with a lineup including Erykah Badu, Aphex Twin, Bonobo and Primal Scream.
Team Love co-founder Tom Paine said, “Striving for accessibility excellence is top of the agenda for everyone at Forwards and we’re pleased to be hosting this world first for a music festival. GiveVision’s technology is truly exceptional and groundbreaking and we’re exciting to see where the partnership goes in future.”
GiveVision head of operations Joanna Liddington said, “If visually impaired individuals were truly represented at festivals, then we could see around 500+ people able to enjoy the music in real time each day at Forwards, with live sound. We’ve seen some incredible responses this weekend as people have experienced the headsets for the first time, completely transforming their festival experience.”